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Mom was visibly relieved to see me up and moving about Monday morning (regardless of my interrupted sleep), and honestly, I had a good feeling about the coming week. Sick as it may seem, there was no burden of what if William shows up after school and makes me do something I don't want to_or _what if William texts me a lot and complains to me, again, about something I don't care about, again... there was still that throbbing emptiness in my heart, that painful regret and wonder if I could still ask him back and be his again, but then - I remembered. Hot and bright and young and probably evanescent, were I to think on it for a while. The breakup hurt, but... it wasn't anything I hadn't been expecting, wasn't anything I hadn't already taken into myself, if I were to be truthful.

But I didn't see Harley that day. Part of me figured he would show up late, or that he would probably skip class, but - he'd tell me about it. As the class went on, as the professor droned on about the current unit and our projects - "that due date is coming up faster than you think, class; if you haven't started, you really need to get on it" - the wagging of my tail weakened, slowed, stopped; I lowered my head down to the desk; I drummed my claws along the smooth surface. T-t-t-tap. T-t-t-tap.

First period ended, second period started. Second period ended, lunch break. I kept on checking my phone, but no new messages came - except for one from Alex, who'd sent me a music video of some weird bluegrass-thrash metal hybrid band. It was okay. Mom gave me a ride home, and once I got there, I dragged out my history textbook, wiped off the dust, and started looking at the section for our project. A little bit before bedtime I sent Harley a goodnight text, but by the following morning, hadn't gotten one in return.

We don't share any classes on Tuesdays, so I didn't expect to see him. Halfway through the day, the loneliness of being single - single, single - had finally started to set in: it just felt odd not checking my phone every twenty seconds for a new message, and not constantly being in some conversation or another. But - I could talk to Zoey about it, couldn't I? Right as I finished my lunch and got up to throw it away, I sent her a quick text.

"Took your advice. Single now. I'm doing ok. Hopefully things will go well with Harley, though... he's kind of in a tough spot right now, but I'm there for him. How was your weekend?"

On Tuesdays my school day finishes when I get off for lunch, so I hit up Alex for a ride home and got back to work... for about twenty minutes, and then I went back to playing that new Edgeworlds game. My mind kept on drifting back to Harley's call early, early Monday morning... as I sat there playing, my attention started to wane. How he'd sounded, how his voice and words had choked, how I could definitely hear his panic. If that had happened while he was here with me, I don't think I'd have been able to keep from crying, myself.

So I sent him another text - "Hey, you doing okay? Haven't heard from you since yesterday. Wanna know what's going on." - and got back to playing. Already I had decided that I'd invite him over again this weekend, which thankfully would come early: we had Friday off for a holiday.

That night I had trouble sleeping. About every hour so, I would think that I'd heard my phone vibrate, and I'd roll over and turn it on to look - only to see my unadorned lock screen, no new notification. Zoey had gotten back to me, but honestly, that wasn't a conversation I wanted to have right now. There were more important things on my mind.

Wednesday morning, though... I still wanted to sleep for another five hours once my alarm rang to get me up, and when I went to turn it off - 1 unread message from Harley. Really, that's what woke me up the rest of the way, almost unpleasantly so: heart beating, paws shaking a little, tail stirring behind me.

Hey Danny. :) Sorry for not getting back to you. I was away from my phone for a bit. I'm doing ok though. Will get to see you later today. Might not be able to make it to history, but I'll be at school.

Another little smile warmed my muzzle. I could almost hear his voice, cool and smooth and bright all at the same time, saying these words to me. God, I wanted to see him. I wanted to - to throw my arms around his neck and hug him tight. I wanted to see him, and smell him, and let him know that I'll always be here for him, no matter what.

What was that William had said on his note, in the little bird statue? Forever and always.

"Promise?"

For lunch that day I made my way out of my last class and down the hall, to my usual spot behind the geoscience building. There's this magnificent tall oak there, perfectly shady for this time of year, where you can sit and be nice and warm without being too hot, and do just about anything without the sun getting in your eyes. I had asked Zoey to meet me there for lunch today, since she wanted to hear the full story of just what exactly had gone down Friday night.

I didn't get a response back from Harley by the time I sat down across from my pantheress friend, and neither did I see him.

"Hey." Zoey snapped her fingers to get my attention. "Yoo-hoo. You in there?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sorry." I shook my head and shifted my bag into my lap. I'd almost forgotten to pack lunch this morning, and had ended up just bringing a bag of chips, a few packs of fruit snacks, and an apple. Not bad. "Just... thinking."

She wasn't impressed. She sat there, arms folded in front of her chest, greenish eyes staying focused on my muzzle. Sometimes it was hard to look a feline in the face for too long, something you'd know if you ever had to do it for longer than a few seconds at a time. I think that was why they made such good police officers.

"...So. You're still here. That's good to see, at least. And you're not crying your eyes out. So..." Here she leaned in, leaning one elbow on the weathered wood of the table. "Everything went... well?"

Well enough, I wanted to say, but that wouldn't be quite right. "It's a long story."

"Panthers are good listeners. C'mon, Danny, I've been here for all these years, I'm not gonna walk off anytime soon."

Sigh. Where to start, really? I clasped my paws in front of me and rested my chin atop them, looking up over at the sky above the nearby geoscience building. I guess the most sensible place to start would be where - where it had ended.

"We broke up."

No gasp, no eyebrow-raise, no nothing other than a near-imperceptible nod.

"He broke up with me, I should say. Which I... guess I should've expected." And yet, unexpectedly, saying so brought back that familiar pressure on my eyes that I had been stuck with throughout all of Saturday and most of Sunday, that faint heavy stinging. It was a little bit hard to swallow and keep going. "I mean. William showed up Friday, when me and Harley were there, and... God, I don't even know how it happened. He was there, he saw him, and - next thing I know, I'm telling him that I cheated on him, and I'm yelling at him, and..."

"What did he say? You gonna stay friends with him?"

Instead of answering, I took out my phone (no unread messages), opened up his string of texts, and slid it over to her. She spent a few minutes looking over them, and I closely watched her face for any sign of... well, anything. Cool honey-hazel, their color visible even in the afternoon's light with her looking away from me... while she read, she reached over to her own bag and took out a candy bar.

Eventually, my gaze drifted from her towards the groups of people walking around campus, some clinging together, most going off on their own. Everyone just... walked by, engrossed in their own conversations or their own phones or their own thoughts, totally oblivious and ignorant of what had just happened in my life. I wonder if any of them had recently had such a large change. That really-

"Ouch."

"Huh?"

She waved a paw down towards my phone, still on the table in front of her. The screen remained on for a few seconds longer - and then dimmed to black. "That. You - sure you're okay, Danny? I mean, you and Will had been together for, what... four years?"

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and leaned back, almost touching the back of my head to the wide trunk of this tree behind me. "Something like that. I figure, it's been coming for a while... I saw it coming, at least..."

The panther remained quiet for a moment, her furrowed brow belying her thoughts. Behind her, her long black tail flicked and stirred the dust along the ground. "...Okay. Look. I know I said that you should probably break up with him. I know that was my advice. But - did you ever stop to think that maybe he didn't see it coming? Daniel, do you want me to tell the truth here?"

"Of course."

"Okay, honestly? I think... I think that- ah, fuck." Zoey folded her paws on the table in front of her, picking through her dark fur with her claws. Her triangular ears refused to stay still for longer than a half-second at a time, and the way she wouldn't make eye contact with me... "I think we might've messed up, man. You 'cause - y'know, cheating - and me'cause I told you it was okay, I told you to break up with 'im. Then you didn't even get the chance."

Just like Friday night, I could feel something flare up in me, that same sort of hot frustrated anger. It was the kind of frustration that builds up time after time after time, picking up weight, becoming harder and harder to ignore until at one point it just... breaks. Despite everything, I couldn't help but smile, though: how fitting, with how we were having this conversation near the geoscience building. It was like a sedimentary deposit atop an ocean cliff.

"Zoey - you don't know him. You haven't spent time_with him. I have. That message might make it _seem like he only had good intentions, and he never messed up, and whatever, but - that was his thing. You know I've never once heard him say 'I was wrong'? And the last time I can remember him apologizing for something is- well -" And I motioned down at the phone as well. "That message right there."

"That's why-" Zoey raised a single sharp-clawed finger. "-I said might have messed up. You're right: I don't know him. I've been in an abusive relationship before, Danny, and - you know, that doesn't always mean_physically_ abusive. There's a circle for an emotionally abusive relationship: get together, you're happy, some stuff comes up, you fight, you break up... and then regret it, and get back together. Repeat. Again and again. I don't want to see this happen to you."

I sighed. In the back of my head, thoughts and images of Harley came up: his bright gemstone green eyes, those large ears of his, his soccer-player build and slim muzzle, his sand-and-stone fur. But, then - his trembling voice during our call late Sunday night-early Monday morning; his raspy, panicked breaths, his choked sobs- "Daniel, I miss you. Talk to me. Please. I'm scared. I'm so scared-"

"It won't."

The panther rested her chin on her paws, elbows on the table. "Why's that?"

The next breath I took brought in the bittersweet taste of this spring day, unseasonably cool. There was the aroma of the flowers just blooming all around campus, the unmistakable rich tang of chlorophyll and freshly cut grass; there was the muted odor of wet brick and cement, of the moist fur of twenty-something thousand different students; the acrid bite of cigarette smoke wafting over from under the exterior stairway of the neighboring building-

"I want Harley to be my boyfriend."

But Zoey didn't even miss a beat. "Well, of course. You're not the kind of guy to fuck someone and then just leave them out in the rain. I should know." Then, she popped her neck - first tilting her head one way, and then the other. "You used to tell me about it every time. Stick by that coyote, okay? You need him right now, and he needs you. I see him around sometimes, even before you'd mentioned him to me, and there's... I don't know. There's something about him that just..." She shook her head. "Call me a witch, call it a premonition - only if it turns out to be true, of course. It's like there's something he's afraid of. Something he wants to forget, but can't. My great-uncle used to have that look." Again, she lifted a finger. "He killed himself around when I was ten. Turns out he was involved in an accident way out in the middle of butt-fuck northern California that resulted in the deaths of three people, a mother and her two babies... way back in 1998. Nobody knew. He never called the cops, no 9-1-1, nothing. Just drove off in his messed-up truck. Tried to shoulder the guilt himself and failed."

"I... don't think Harley's a murderer."

"Manslaughter, technically. But, sure. I could be wrong. Maybe he's just - one of those mopes who tries to put on a good face, you know?"

Had he been - been trying to put on a good face the whole time I'd known him? Was who I'd spoken to that night the real_Harley, and the one I knew just some facade? "There's... _one thing..."

"Here it comes."

Briefly, I considered just waving it off - it _would_be a breach of his privacy to tell Zoey what had happened, but... well, she already knew so much.

"When... after the whole thing Friday night, Harley went home, and I didn't hear from him the rest of the weekend, but... then, Sunday..." I sighed. "He called me."

"...And? Is that the whole story?"

"He was..." God, it hurt to remember. "Zoey, he was crying. Anxiety attack. When he stayed the night Thursday, I noticed that he had a prescription anxiety medication, and - Friday before he left, I had to help him take some-"

"Ah! So there is something." Zoey squinted. "Probably. Yeah, yeah, it's insensitive of me to assume that all anxiety disorders have a cause, but... you know."

"...but... the way he was talking, the way he reacted..." I looked up again. Despite the replies she'd given, Zoey's moss-green eyes showed the depth of her attention and concern. She put on a smile, but the edges of her mouth still tugged down, her whiskers still remained out, her ears stayed forward and directed towards me. "This wasn't even his breakup. And - he took it harder than I did. Kept on apologizing, kept on saying he was scared... I'd never seen him like that. It was hard."

"Someone you care about..." Zoey began, but trailed off.

"And - before he left, he said something else, something that just hit me as odd-"

"What was it?"

I swallowed again. "Said he was scared of losing me, too."

That caused her ears to perk up. "Too? Like - like it's happened to someone else?"

"I guess so. I didn't know what to make of it."

Then, silence again other than the mixed conversations of everyone else on campus, of the traffic on the nearby streets, of the wind rustling and whispering through the branches overhead. When Zoey next spoke, all of the humor and her characteristic lightheartedness had gone out of her voice.

"Keep an eye on him. Okay? And - Daniel, treat that coyote better than you ever did William. Hold on to him, and don't you _dare_fucking let him go. You need him, and he needs you. This hasn't - hasn't changed your opinion of him, has it?"

"What?"

"How all of a sudden he's no longer happy-energetic-super-fucking-attractive dreamboat-of-a-coyote Harley whatever-his-last-name-is. Suddenly he's an entire person, someone with baggage of his own that - sorry - may very well be heavier than you own. You, who - what, accidentally shoplifted a bookstore of your summer reading assignment because you were too interested in it to realize you hadn't yet paid?"

Of course, knowing her, those two things couldn't stay absent for long.

"Zoey..."

"I know, I know. Look, Daniel: this is just another step, right? No matter what happens, we've just gotta keep going forward. So you and William broke up. Okay. That just paves the way for you and Harley. And - don't expect to heal him. Okay? That's the thing with mental illness." Her eyes sharpened when she caught my ears flick. "Yes, that's what it is. Anxiety, depression, whatever he's got. It's like - God, I heard a great analogy once..."

Don't expect to heal him.

"Imagine it like he's got heavy iron chains on his ankles. Ball and chain, you know the deal. He's dragging them along, maybe he's found a way to walk to make it less of a strain on him - but it's still always there, always tiring him out, and he's forgotten what it's like to live without them. And then-" Zoey opened her paws toward me. "Then you come along. You pick up those heavy chains, you pick up the weights, and you shoulder the burden along with him. But you're not used to it, and you're not the one forced_to deal with it. You'll get tired eventually, and even if you don't mean to, even if you keep on trying to hold on, they'll eventually slip from your grasp. You've done all you can do, and you just _can't keep up anymore. So - I can't stress it enough. You can expect to help, expect to offer some assistance. But don't expect to cure him."

"I just want him to be okay."

"Do you regret it?"

I - what? I frowned. "Huh? What?"

"Do you regret fuckin' Harley while still with William?"

~ ~ ~

I managed to catch Harley that afternoon right before Mom came to pick me up. He was sitting out under the big dead tree in the front courtyard of the fine arts building, back to the smooth wood that had long since been stripped of all its bark, and had been tainted from healthy tan to grimy grey by age and rain and rot. At first, he didn't notice me slide down the trunk beside him; it took me resting my paw on his shoulder to catch his attention, and when it did, he jumped.

He looked terrible. Fur matted in some places and unkempt in others, ears splayed, whiskers down. He looked like he hadn't showered since Monday, and hadn't slept since Friday - which, having heard him on the phone... I tried to give him a smile, to give him some manner of hope or reassurance, but soon I found that dreary malaise spreading through my own heart.

The light had gone out of those eyes. What I remembered as bright immaculate emerald now looked like the wall of a fish tank overgrown with algae and moss and mold, borderline opaque mulch-green.

"How are you holding up?"

He didn't respond. It didn't look like he'd brought anything with him today, or maybe he'd just left it all in some room somewhere. I wasn't even sure what classes he had on Wednesdays other than history, which he hadn't shown up to. Harley had his paws in front of him, fingers intertwined, but when he separated them to scratch a spot under his chin, I could see just how much they shook.

I scooted a little bit closer. It seemed off that I couldn't feel the heat radiating off his body. "Are you... are you remembering to eat? Even if you're not hungry. Even if the thought of food makes you sick. You have to eat, Harley. For me?"

His body twitched in what I thought was a response, but it turned out to be just a hiccup, or a burp, or a cough, or something. Instead of saying anything, the coyote leaned over and rested his head on my shoulder, eyes staring out in front of him. His tail remained still behind him.

"...Look, Harley. You know how we have Friday off? How tomorrow's technically Friday?"

Weak nod. My heart jumped; at least it was something.

"Would you, um... be willing to come over Thursday afternoon, and stay the night again? Whatever it is that's bothering you, we can talk about it. If you want to. I just... I want you to know that I'm doing okay, and it's not your fault, and-"

Almost without warning, then, he'd thrown himself around me and buried his muzzle in the fur between my neck and my shoulder, arms tight around my body. I thought it was just a hug until the sobs started again, raspy and quiet but still racking his whole body, just like on Friday. I returned the tight embrace and placed a light kiss in the fur of his head... one thing about him having not showered was that he wore his natural scent stronger than ever, something that comforted me a little bit. Selfish.

"Harley, Harley..." I glanced around. There weren't many people walking by, and those that did seemed too interested in their own phones to bother looking up at us. "I'm here. Okay? I'm here. I'm not going to leave. Not until Mom gets here to pick me up, at least. Um - okay, um... do you like mac and cheese? Harley. Do you-" I had to yank my arms up out of his hug, and tilted his muzzle up to look at me with my paws on his cheeks - and, then, I had to force myself to maintain eye contact. It just... hurt so much to see him like this. "Do you like macaroni and cheese?"

Sniffle, heavy swallow, light cough. Then, another weak nod.

"Good. I'll make you some. Kraft or Velveeta? ...Kraft?" Shake of the head. "Velveeta." Nod, and another sniffle. "Okay. I'll have Mom pick some up. That sound good? She also made some meat loaf the other night, and Mom's meat loaf is really good... come on, Harley..."

Arms tight around him, paws pressed against his back keeping him close to me... each of his sobs and every unpleasant shiver through his body rippled in turn through me. Gradually, though, slowly, he calmed down, and - coughed, swallowed, wiped his nose on the back of his paw.

"Feeling better?"

Green eyes, wet with tears. It was like the difference between looking at a finely-cut and well-illuminated verdant gemstone, and then seeing what it looked like while still rough. "...Yeah," he managed, and wiped his nose again. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Daniel. I just... haven't been doing too well lately... I'd - I'd love to come over again. I really need..." Quieter: "...really need you right now..."

The thing about diamonds is that it's the way they're prepared and displayed that brings out their inner light. Some gems are devoid of a light of their own, and need to borrow it from somewhere else. That's how some kinds of luminescence work, though: absorb the light from elsewhere, and then shine it out brightly as your own.